Review: Kevin Keller

Artist(s): Dan Parent.

The shortcomings of mainstream comics publishers such as Marvel or DC regarding queer inclusiveness have often been the subject of heated discussion among readers. But the most mainstream comic publisher, in terms of content, might be the timeless Archie Comics, and that publisher had no gay character, openly or otherwise, until very recently. That situation changed with the September 2010 beginnings of Kevin Keller, the subject of much press material, both inside and outside the comics community. I’d never read an Archie comic, but I was curious to see how that would play out and found myself visiting Riverdale, the squeaky clean small town where eternally teenage Archie and his gang have lived since 1941. The publication at the end of the month of a collection of Kevin Keller’s first stories1, all written and drawn by his creator Dan Parent, is a good opportunity for me to try and sort out the feelings I have about this new character.

Dan Parent's presentation art

Veronica #202 saw the first appearance of Kevin, with a comedy of errors serving as an launching point for the character. I knew almost nothing about the Archie world, so that comic was a crash course for me. Veronica is a rich, dark-haired kind of bitchy character, always competing for Archie’s affections with Betty, the nice blond girl. There’s also Jughead, who never parts from his  crown-like hat and is more interested in food than girls—leading, it seems, a lot of readers to consider him a closeted character, much like Tintin, for example. You can see Betty, Archie, Kevin, Jughead and Veronica on the cover of the collection.
I thought the two threads used to introduce Kevin worked very well: he’s first shown as being as much a glutton as Jughead, and the two boys bond over burgers, while Veronica falls for the good looks of the new boy. Kevin is quickly upfront with Jughead about being gay, and Veronica’s best enemy soon understands how he can use her being clueless to his advantage. There are a lot of cute moments all over the comic, and Dan Parent manages to make us laugh with the characters, when the situations could have lead to ugly gay panic scenes.

Kevin’s second appearance was four months later in Veronica # 205 (he was in the background of #204, but with no speaking role). Now that Veronica and Kevin are best friends, Betty feels neglected. The issue follows her mounting disappointment as all her friends are infatuated with Kevin—even Archie is happy with Veronica spending so much time with the gay boy, for obvious reasons.
With this issue, Parent further integrates his character in the large cast, in a way that seemed a bit light to me at first, before I realized it was in keeping with the general ambiance of these comics.

I’d never seen Parent’s art before, and I thought his solid, clean line made the characters look both modern and timeless, a good fit for the ambiance of Archie’s world. He certainly can draw cute girls and boys, and the settings are simply but effectively rendered. He has fun with varied and always highly legible layouts, with the shapes and angles of panels enhancing the rhythm and mood of the scenes. Parent’s art is more than competent: it’s got style.
Something else that struck me was that the pages always look densely filled but not heavy, contrary to what happens often for me in contemporary superhero comics. That is, I think, as much a function of Parent’s line style as of his well-thought layouts.
Parent often uses a storytelling technique that we don’t really see in superhero comics: a foreground character looks outside the panel when talking either to somebody else or to him/herself, almost breaking the fourth wall but not quite. It makes the reader more engaged in what they’re reading and reminded me of the classical theater trick of having a character address the public when having an aside.
There’s even a small art quirk I find adorable: when he draws characters sideways, he often adds a little curved line at the top of the mouth that to me makes them look like they have chipmunk cheeks. I found myself thinking “How cute!”.

Jughead and Kevin discuss Veronica (from #202)

Betty ponders her situation (from #205)

Those two issues brought very positive press and high sales to the publisher, so it was not surprising that the character got his own bimonthly mini-series with Veronica #207-210, retitled for the occasion Kevin Keller #1-4. With those four issues, we delve deeper into Kevin’s family life and history, with somewhat mixed results for me.
The first issue sees Kevin and Jughead having a pie-eating contest for charity—yes, Riverdale is the kind of town where people pay to watch eating contests; two of Kevin’s best friends from his previous town arrive and reminisce with him about the bullies they had to face; we learn how his family reacted to his coming-out, and how close he is to his father, a retired colonel. So close that he intends to spend some time in the military before embarking on his career of choice, journalism.

In the second issue, these ideas are developed, via flashbacks and present discussions. Younger Kevin is shown as being brave when facing bullies, and as having a strong case of hero worship toward his father.
This is where I begin to wonder about the choices made by the creator and the publisher of this character: I understand that they wanted to show a gay guy with strong principles, someone who could be a role model. And that’s good. They also wanted to show a family that took care of its own, including the gay son. And that’s very good. But to have the son see his father as a hero, did they have to make the father a military man? And for that matter, did they have to give the son a military future to show that he was an upstanding citizen? While that does resonate with the DADT repeal (and it seems this story was planned before the repeal was a done deal), it also seems to me to reveal a lot about American values—at least, it didn’t seem to me that the message was that Kevin was a real man because he wanted to be in the military; that would have been unfortunate. I think Kevin and his father having a close relationship is a great idea, but it seems to me it would have worked even better with, say, a blue collar father or at least a father doing a mundane job.

Kevin and his homophobic opponent

The third and fourth issues were more convincing for me, since they showed chinks in Kevin’s armor, or at least issues he had to face. In the third one, the group asks Kevin to represent the school at a TV show where schools compete against each other with general culture questions. With Kevin having problems to talk in front of an audience, the decision is not made lightly. I wasn’t expecting this character, who’d been shown so far as being almost insufferably perfect, to have to face something so ordinary, but it was a welcome addition. The support of his friends is central to the resolution of the matter, a support which is an important theme in these stories.
In the fourth issue, real-world issues take center stage, with Kevin having an homophobic student for an adversary when he agrees to run for class president (again with some prodding from his friends). I certainly wasn’t expecting such a serious problem to occur in the world of Riverdale, but Parent manages to make it believable while keeping the optimistic point of view that permeates these stories.

Kevin wonders about all the roads open to him

There we are at the end of the mini-series: Kevin has been given strong friends, a supportive family, some shortcomings to face, and an iron will to not let bullies, homophobic and otherwise, make him run away. It might be said that he’s a bit too perfect, but at the same time, Dan Parent has obviously done his best to portray a young gay man with an open future in front of him, as can be seen with the wonderful cover to the fourth issue. The futures depicted are very American mainstream, but Archie comics seems to be that way in general.
It’s also obvious that a lot of care was given to breaking stereotypes, even though Parent might have gone a bit too far in the opposite direction—though I thought Kevin being the oldest son was a nice idea when the simplistic theory of gay boys as youngest sons (less testosterone available from the mother, you know) has often been heard in recent times.

From the cover of Life With Archie #16

Speaking of the military aspect of Kevin’s future life, a story published the same month as the Kevin Keller #4 comic addresses that: in Life With Archie #16, a series where possible near-futures for the characters are examined, Kevin’s wedding is celebrated, and it takes place after his stint in the army. This is the only Kevin Keller story not written and drawn by Dan Parent (Paul Kupperberg writes, with Fernando Ruiz, Tim and Pat Kennedy drawing), but it was done with his collaboration. We learn how Kevin met Clay, his soon-to-be husband, and see them getting married with all their friends and family present. I was disappointed that we didn’t see them kissing, but otherwise, it was a good continuation of ideas introduced in the main comics.

In the space of a few months, Archie Comics have caught up with other big comics publishers in terms of gay inclusiveness and gave us an openly gay character who doesn’t spend years pining for straight boys (Marvel is especially guilty of that). They will soon surpass them: an ongoing series starring Kevin is beginning this month, and readers have been promised stories about dating (Kevin will not be good at that), with boy-on-boy kissing. Romance has so far been absent from Kevin’s world, with only once scene where we saw Kevin checking out boys, cute little red hearts around his head, as per the habit for straight characters. Kevin dating other boys will also have another interesting consequence: Having only one gay in the village leads to over-analyzing the way he’s handled, as I’ve probably done in this review. But showing more gay boys (I hope lesbians will appear sometime soon) will enable Dan Parent, who’ll write and draw the new series, to diversify his gay characters. What is sure is that with Kevin Keller firmly ensconced in the world of Archie, all-ages comics will never be the same again—and that’s a good thing.


Notes:
  1. This 160-page hardcover includes Veronica #202, 205 and Kevin Keller #1-4. It is available from the publisher or from Amazon, and the comics are also available as a digital app.
    UPDATE 2012/12: the first issue of the miniseries can be read for free on the publisher’s site.

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